Parallel

by Lauren Miller

  My armpits tingle with shame. I can blame my parallel self for lying to Tyler and for saying what she did about Craig, but this broken promise is on both of us, because I forgot, too. Between classes, play rehearsal, cross-country practice, and my own college applications, there wasn’t a lot of space left in my own brain last fall. I remember feeling frazzled and overwhelmed for most of the semester, just trying to keep track of everything I had to do. How many other promises did I break? Who else did I let down?

  I’m a jackass. A self-absorbed jackass.

  Now it all makes sense.

  “Cate, I’m so sorry,” I tell her, my eyes welling up with tears.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she says, hugging me as my tears spill over. “I should have just told you why I was upset . . . or reminded you again. I knew you’d just forgotten. But you were so busy with your own stuff, and I figured the essays wouldn’t even matter that much if my SAT score was high enough. When it wasn’t, I freaked.”

  I pull away and look at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I choked,” she says. “Two hundred points lower than my lowest practice score.”

  “Oh, Caitlin. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was embarrassed,” she replies. “I didn’t tell anyone.” My chest aches at the thought of her going through that alone. How disappointed she must have been. How anxious and afraid. “When I didn’t get in, it was easy to blame you for that, too,” she explains. “I was still so mad at you. I told myself that if my essay had been better, the score wouldn’t have mattered as much.”

  “Wait, what? You didn’t get into Yale early?”

  Caitlin shakes her head. “Wait-listed till February,” she says. “That’s not how you remember it?”

  “No! In my version, you got your acceptance letter the day before Thanksgiving.”

  Caitlin looks puzzled for a moment. Then something clicks. “Martin Wagner,” she says. “I’ll bet he was the reason I got in early.”

  The name is familiar but I can’t place it. “Who’s Martin Wagner?”

  “Josh’s stepdad,” she replies. “He was supposed to do my Yale alumni interview. Josh was helping me prepare. After our fight, I requested a different interviewer. The woman I ended up with was a total nightmare.”

  “So that’s what you were doing,” I say. “My parallel saw you and Josh in the chem lab that morning.” At the mention of his name, another memory comes to mind. Sitting with him on a wooden swing, feeling his fingertips on the inside of my arm as we kiss. “Wait, were we a couple?” Even before Caitlin responds, I know the answer is yes. There is no way that kiss wasn’t the beginning of something. The muscles around my rib cage contract, like a corset. “For how long?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replies. The corners of her mouth form a small, sad smile. “You and I weren’t exactly dishing relationship details. All I know is it ended before prom.”

  Prom. In the real version of things, I was in L.A. and didn’t get to go. At the time, I told myself it was no big deal, but deep down, I regretted missing it. “Did I still go, though? With someone else?”

  She nods. “You went with Tyler. As friends.”

  “After he asked you, and you said no.”

  Caitlin looks surprised. “You remember that?”

  “No, I just know Ty. And you.” I look down at the floor, willing myself not to cry. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to turn out. Tyler should’ve been at that dance with Caitlin, not with me.

  “Hey,” Caitlin says softly, touching my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay. In the end, everything turned out the way it was supposed to.”

  I meet her gaze, the eyes I know better than my own, and nod. “We’re okay,” I repeat.

  “We’re okay.” Her voice is unequivocal, as if she’s never been more certain of anything in her life. A deep, ineffable gratitude washes through me. Her forgiveness is more than I deserve and yet I have it, completely. I grab her hand, my throat suddenly tight.

  “I couldn’t do this without you,” I whisper.

  She squeezes my hand. “Yes, you could,” she says. “But you won’t have to.” She lets go of my hand and unlatches her bracelet, a delicate gold chain with an antique clasp. “Here,” she says, putting it on my wrist. “As long as you wake up wearing it, you’ll know we’re okay.”

  I smile, running my finger over the tiny gold loops. “Why’d you pick up?” I ask. “On my birthday. If you thought we were still fighting, why’d you answer my call?”

  “I dunno,” she says thoughtfully. “I wasn’t going to at first. But it’d been so long, and it was your birthday. . . . I guess I figured if you were making the effort, I could at least hear you out.” She shrugs. “Then when I answered, you acted like it was totally normal that you were calling me. I knew something was up. So I met you at the library, heard what was happening, and brought you here to see Gustav.”

  “You never told me about the fight?”

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to,” she admits. “Since you didn’t remember it, and no one here knew anything about it, I could pretend like it never happened.”

  Metal clangs against metal as Dr. Mann comes through the lab door carrying a cup of tea and a half-eaten scone. He’s wearing at least a fourth of it on the front of his shirt. Dr. Mann sees us watching him and smiles mid-bite. Another chunk of scone lands on his tie. I stifle a giggle.

  “I should probably get back to work,” Caitlin says, hopping off her stool. “Gustav is leaving for Munich on Tuesday, and he wants me to finish his grant application before he goes.”

  “Well, then. I’ll leave you and Gustav alone.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me, and I am hit with a wave of relief that despite the fight and everything else, Caitlin and I are okay. I throw my arms around her. “I love you,” I whisper, hugging her tight.

  “I love you, too,” she whispers back.

  “Soulmates,” comes Dr. Mann’s voice. “The most enduring of human relationships.” He’s staring thoughtfully at his chalkboard, munching on the last of his scone. “That’s what we’re missing.” He brushes the crumbs off his shirt and steps up to the board. With the sleeve of his jacket and a broken piece of chalk, he makes several quick revisions to his equation.

  When he’s finished, he returns the chalk to its dusty ledge and takes a step back. His eyes remind me of an old-fashioned typewriter—right, down, left, right, down, left—as he studies the complicated string of numbers, symbols, and signs. “You asked if you could miss your destiny,” he says then, with a nod at the board. “Not if you find your soulmates first.”

  “Soulmates, plural?” I ask him. “How many does each person have?”

  The old man smiles at his equation, as if the answer is right in front of us. “Exactly as many as she needs.”

  Caitlin’s hand catches mine. “One down,” she whispers.

  “Hey, Abby, who’d we get the fifth costume for?” Marissa asks. She’s hunched over her laptop, watching the Power Rangers opening sequence on YouTube while Ben watches the World Series on our TV.

  “Caitlin,” I tell her, putting down the bio textbook I’m not really reading. “But I forgot to ask her if she even needs it.” I dig through my bag for my cell, then remember I don’t have it. “Hey, can I borrow your phone?” I ask Ben. “I left mine at Michael’s.”

  “Sure,” he says, and tosses it to me.

  Michael answers on the second ring. “Why is Nick Swisher such a d-bag?”

  “Huh?”

  “Abby?”

  “Who’s Nick Swisher?”

  “Such a douche bag!” Ben shouts from the couch.

  “He plays for the Yankees,” Michael explains. “Why are you calling me on Ben’s phone?”

  “I can’t find mine. Did I leave it over there?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll look. Where would you have left it?”

  “Your bed,” I reply, forgetting my audience. Ben snickers. Blushing, I
step into the hall, letting the door shut behind me.

  “Nope,” Michael says. “Don’t see it. Are you sure you left it here?”

  “I think so . . . I realized I didn’t have it as soon as I got back, and I didn’t go anywhere befo—” Starbucks. I must’ve left it on the counter when I bought my coffee. “Crap.”

  “Uh-oh. Where’d you leave it?”

  “Starbucks. I stopped for coffee.”

  “Call it,” he tells me. “Maybe someone picked it up.”

  I do, but no one answers. As I’m hanging up, I remember that I never listened to the voicemail I got from that 310 number. I quickly dial my mailbox to retrieve it.

  “Please enter your password,” comes the automated voice.

  3-7-7-3.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice says. “You have entered an incorrect password.”

  I enter it again, slower this time, making sure to get it right.

  “I’m sorry. You have entered an incorrect password. Please hang up and try again.”

  I stare at the keypad, puzzled. 3-7-7-3. The last four digits of Caitlin’s home phone number. That’s been my voicemail password since I got my first cell phone in ninth grade. Could whoever has my phone have changed the password? Don’t you need the original password to do that?

  The fight. My parallel self must’ve changed it.

  I try the last four digits of my parents’ phone number and the last four digits of Tyler’s, but neither work. Equally annoyed at myself, my parallel, and the thief who’s commandeered my phone, I punch out Caitlin’s number. As soon as I hit the call button, her name appears on the screen. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. This is Ben’s phone. Why does my roommate’s boyfriend have Caitlin’s number?

  The phone is still in my hands when Caitlin’s voicemail picks up.

  “Hey, it’s Abby,” I say after the beep. “Why does Ben have your number in his phone? I’m calling to see if you need a costume for tonight and if you want to walk over to Inferno with us. Lemme know.” I start to hang up. “Oh—I lost my phone. So call my landline.”

  “Did you find it?” a male voice asks. Ben is standing in our doorway.

  “Nope.” I hand him his phone, then step past him into the common room. “I called Caitlin,” I announce to Marissa, louder than I need to.

  “Is she coming with us?” Ben asks casually.

  “I got voicemail.” I want to ask him why the hell he has Caitlin’s number saved in his phone, but not while Marissa is in earshot.

  Our landline rings, and Marissa reaches for it. “Hey, Caitlin!” she says a moment later. She listens, then nods. “Okay. We’ll just meet you there then.” I glance at Ben, but he’s fiddling with his phone. “Yep,” I hear Marissa say, just before she hangs up. “I’ll tell her.”

  “She doesn’t need a costume?”

  “No,” she replies. “And she told me to tell you she’s probably going to skip Inferno. Said she’d catch up with you at the concert.”

  “Did she say why?”

  Marissa shakes her head. “But she sounded stressed. Work maybe?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” I glance back at Ben, but he’s still busy with his cell. “I guess I’ll walk over to Starbucks to see if they have my phone.”

  On my way there, I run through reasons why Ben would have Caitlin’s number. Marissa gave it to him. Marissa called Caitlin from his phone and he saved it.

  Ben and Caitlin have a thing.

  I push the thought from my mind. Caitlin wouldn’t do that to Marissa. Not after Craig. There’s just no way.

  My phone, of course, is not at Starbucks. Annoyed, frustrated, and suddenly very tired, I treat myself to a caramel latte with extra caramel and take the long way back to my room. Ben passes me as I’m coming up the entryway stairs. “Going to buy vodka,” is all he says. He doesn’t slow down.

  Marissa is standing on her head in the common room. “Ben’s acting weird,” she announces.

  Dread pools in the pit of my stomach. “Weird how?”

  “I dunno. Just weird. Antsy.” She bends her legs, lowering them until her knees are resting on her triceps. “Has he said anything to you?”

  “To me? No.”

  In one fluid motion, she dismounts from the headstand and stands up. “I’m probably overthinking it,” she says. “People act weird sometimes. It doesn’t always mean something. Right?”

  “Not always,” I agree.

  Just usually.

  “Wow.”

  I follow Michael’s gaze over the rowdy crowd to the back of Woolsey Hall, expecting to see another elaborate costume. Instead, I see Caitlin, wearing plastic lab glasses, a form-fitting white lab coat, and five-inch magenta Louboutin stilettos . . . and not much else. Her long blond hair is tied back in a low ponytail, and her face is bare except for the five coats of black mascara layered on her lashes. She looks amazing. I suddenly feel very dowdy in my yellow uni-suit.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, leaving Michael by himself in our overcrowded row. “Don’t lose our seats.”

  “I’ll try my best,” Michael replies, sliding over to the center of the three seats we’ve claimed. Marissa took Ben to “Haunted Yoga” at the Grove Street cemetery, so it’s just the two of us trying to hold three seats. “But hurry. I’m not sure how long I can fend off the seat vultures.”

  I make my way through the costumed crowd to where Caitlin is standing.

  “Sexy cops, sexy nurses . . . why should scientists get the shaft?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” she replies, curtsying a little.

  “Why didn’t you come to the party with us?” I ask her as we weave back through the crowd toward our seats.

  “Oh, I just had some work to do,” she says, keeping her voice breezy.

  “At ten o’clock on Saturday night?”

  “Yup.”

  Caitlin does not use words like “yup.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  She sighs and looks me in the eye. “Ben.”

  I stop walking. A fat guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear crashes into me from behind, nearly knocking me over.

  “Sorry!” he slurs. Caitlin pulls me out of the way as he barrels past us.

  “Nothing’s going on,” she tells me in a low voice.

  “He has your number saved in his phone.”

  “He asked for it when he walked me home after your birthday dinner. He did it so casually, it didn’t feel like a big deal.”

  “He walked you home after my birthday dinner?”

  Caitlin nods. “Michael went with you and Marissa back to Old Campus, and Ben walked with me. I told him I was fine by myself—I think I was the least drunk of all of us—but he insisted. We got to talking, and before we knew it, it was three thirty.”

  “Those are alternate memories,” I tell her, keeping my voice down. “In the real version, Tyler called you right after Ben offered to walk you home, and you left. The four of us walked back to my room together.”

  “Why was Tyler calling me at two in the morning?” Caitlin asks.

  “It was your thing. You talked every night before you went to bed.”

  “Every night? Did he also wear a lock of my hair around his neck?” Caitlin makes a gagging motion. “Why do relationships make otherwise cool people act like morons? And I can’t even make fun of him for it.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Abby!” Michael motions for us to hurry. A guy in a rubber Bill Clinton mask hovers at the end of our row, stalking the empty seats.

  “Coming!” I call to him, then turn back to Caitlin. “What else?”

  “There’s nothing else. A few phone calls and emails. That’s it.”

  “He’s Marissa’s boyfriend, Caitlin.”

  “I know that, Abby.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “He has a girlfriend.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Yes, I did,” she says firmly. Then, looking past me: “We should sit, the show�
�s about to start.”

  “Does he like you?”

  I see her hesitate and have my answer.

  “Poor Marissa,” I say then. She’s the one whose heart will be broken here, and she hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s just another casualty of the chain reaction my parallel started when she tried to play Cupid.

  Caitlin looks hurt. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Abby.”

  “I know,” I tell her, giving her hand a squeeze as we inch down our row toward Michael. “It’s not your fault.”

  It’s mine.

  The Yale Symphony Orchestra’s annual Halloween show is more than just an orchestral concert. The musicians play the soundtrack to a student-made silent film, complete with several live-action sequences and a crazy pyrotechnic finale (there’s no way the fire marshal is on board with this). With three thousand college students stuffed into an auditorium that seats twenty-five hundred, it’s a raucous, borderline chaotic affair. By the time the houselights come on afterward, I’m both hoarse and deaf from all the screaming.

  “Should we go to Toad’s till close or skip it and get pizza instead?” Michael asks us as we’re inching toward the door after the show. Getting thousands of people into the building was a lot easier than getting them out.

  “Pizza,” I reply. “I’m too tired to dance.”

  “Ooh, pizza sounds good,” Caitlin says. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

  “Yorkside or Wall Street?” Michael asks, pulling out his phone.

  “Yorkside,” we say in unison.

  “Cool. I’ll text Ben.”

  Caitlin and I exchange a glance. She feigns a yawn. “Actually, on second thought, I think I’ve passed hunger and descended into sheer exhaustion. I’m just gonna head home.”

  “You sure?” Michael asks, slipping his hand into mine as we descend Woolsey’s front steps. Throngs of costumed revelers spill out onto the sidewalk and into the intersection of College and Grove as uniformed campus security guards try in vain to break up the crowd, which moves toward York Street in a Toad’s-bound mass. “All roads lead to Toad’s!” I hear someone shout.